


In The Paradigm Shift

by GoldfishForHire



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and the Signal (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Batdad, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Gen, Humor, Jason Todd loves school, Jason is displeased, Snatching Duke Thomas from the reboot and shoving him into preboot canon, This was supposed to just be a short funny thing, Tim canonically dropped out of school, but I gave it a soft ending anyway because of course I did, everyone's trying their best, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldfishForHire/pseuds/GoldfishForHire
Summary: Jason meets up with Bruce to work together on a case. In doing so, Jason makes a couple of horrifying discoveries, and one really good one.
Relationships: Batfamily - Relationship
Comments: 24
Kudos: 345





	In The Paradigm Shift

Jason sat slumped in the plush chair and wanted to leave. He’d been working with the Bats outright more and more until eventually he was meeting them in the cave sometimes to plan things out or coming back with them after patrol to debrief. But this afternoon was the first time he’d gone over to the manor before the cave, and was definitely the first time he’d done so to work with Batman specifically and without any of the others as buffers. Which meant, of course, that this was also the time when Wayne Enterprises managed to actually get a call through to Bruce’s study as they were passing through. Bruce had grimaced and looked at him in a way that was probably meant to portray apology and had proceeded to launch into a lengthy back and forth with Lucius. Of all the possible setbacks Jason had anticipated, from fighting with Bruce to fighting with the others, this was one that hadn’t actually occurred to him. 

But that disconcerted him less than the fact that it all reminded him of the time Bruce was going to take him to a Knights game but had gotten a call that he had to take. It wasn’t their first game and it wasn’t their last, but it had left Jason kicking his heels while Bruce tried and failed to wrap the call up. They’d ended up still going to the game, but had missed the first seven innings. Bruce had felt so bad that the next day he’d taken Jason to spend the day at the Gotham Aquarium and had waved enough money to get them a private tour of some of the closed exhibitions and the research labs and vehicles. He’d openly hated the flash, but loved the experience. 

Jason swallowed his smile at the memory and sighed. He supposed he could go back to the kitchen and talk to Alfred, but thought that might be awkward since he didn’t know how long Bruce’s call would last and didn’t want to go down only to have to turn right around. He could also head down into the cave before Bruce was done and wait for him there and he might have done that if he thought it would rankle Bruce’s sensitivities, but it was more likely that Bruce would read it as Jason’s rising comfort level in the manor and the cave. Jason wasn’t ready to examine if that was true so instead he was stuck waiting. 

He looked around the study to distract himself. Mostly it was the same. The bookshelves built into the walls lining the room. The big, near floor to ceiling windows that implied Bruce wasn’t nearly as paranoid as he was, the thickness and composition of the glass making it perfectly obvious. The ornate, antique clock that held all of their new secrets. The huge, hand carved fuck off desk Bruce was currently standing behind. Not even sitting while he took the call like a regular person; just standing with one hand holding the receiver and the other slotted in his pocket like an asshole. The photographs of various places in Gotham were new. Dick’s high school diploma was the same, as were the certificates he’d won from various high school sports and clubs. The drawn and painted profiles of local wildlife and portraits of people he recognized in a vague sort of way were new. The medals Dick had won at a gymnastics tournament he’d competed in during the single year he’d gone to college were the same. His college acceptance letter was framed beside them in the same place it always had been. Next to it were awards for what looked like some sort of creative writing competition, but Jason couldn’t really make out the details from here. Those were new. Had Dick taken up creative writing? 

“Are you ready?”

Jason just about managed not to jump, but hadn’t realized he’d gotten so wrapped up in studying everything around him that he hadn’t noticed Bruce finish his phone call. “Have you considered the possibility that maybe everyone thinks that Dick is your favourite because you only have his stuff up on the walls?”

Bruce blinked, looking taken aback, but whether that was because of the harshness of his tone, his accusation, or both Jason wasn’t sure. The man’s eyes swept the study. “What do you mean?”

Jason let his exasperation show on his face and sort of vaguely gestured at everything. “Other than the art and photos -”

“The art is Damian’s.”

“-everything in here is-” Jason stopped. “What?”

Bruce gestured to a coloured drawing of a doe and two fawns in some sort of wooded scene. “The paintings and drawings were created by Damian. Mostly from around Gotham, but New Jersey in general as well. He tends to keep the ones inspired by his life and experiences outside of Gotham to himself.”

He pointed to a black and white photograph of the interior of an old, falling apart building. An office or apartment or something. The floors had mostly rotted though and you could see up through all five levels. It should have looked pretentious but didn’t. “The photographs are Tim’s. He also did the large print of the Gotham skyline from the view on the other side of the bay. Though on second thought, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it. It’s hanging above the mantel in the main den.”

Bruce picked up one of the picture frames on his desk and turned it around to show Jason. It was a photo of a costumed Cassandra on stage and in the middle of performing some sort of contorting jump. Despite the movement, there was no blur. “He took this too. It was Cass’s first ballet solo.”

Bruce’s eyes shifted to look across the room and Jason’s gaze followed. The creative writing awards. “Duke entered a contest through the school. Prose. He was originally going to submit poetry as well, but got cold feet and retracted those submissions. He shouldn’t have. He would have won in that category as well, I’m sure of it.”

This was getting a little heavy for Jason. He knew that Bruce was only answering Jason’s question, but Jason only asked it to disguise the fact that he’d gotten so caught up in looking. “That's nice, but Dick’s is the only diploma you’ve got up.”

Jason wasn’t sure why he kept pushing at it, but Bruce looked almost like he recognized the antic. He didn’t show any indication that he was annoyed or losing patience with Jason’s assertions. There wasn’t even a hint of potential for this to devolve into their usual blowups. And it wasn’t just from Bruce. Jason could feel the difference in himself, too, though he couldn’t say what the motivation was. “Dick’s is the only diploma I have to put up.”

Jason’s shoulders shot up and he was a little pissed that he couldn’t stop it from happening. “Well it’s not like they’re handing out extra credit for being less than alive, old man.”

Bruce’s eyes shone a little brightly and his tone gentled. “Jaylad, I wasn’t talking about you. You did exceptionally well in school. I was always proud of you and you should be proud of yourself. If you want to go back, we can make it happen.”

Jason stared over Bruce’s shoulder. He didn’t trust himself to acknowledge the offer without giving anything away so he didn’t say anything. After a moment Bruce sighed. “Duke will be graduating soon enough, but not for a little while. Damian’s still a ways off.”

Without making eye contact Jason drawled, “You’re missing one.” Well, two, but he wasn’t sure about Cass’s experiences with formal education. “Unless you’re telling me you have a high school student as Wayne Enterprises’ majority shareholder."

Bruce made a noise and Jason knew from experience that Bruce would be wearing a pained expression. “No. Tim isn’t a high school student.”

“So where’s his diploma?”

Silence. Jason finally looked up and Bruce was wearing the expression he’d imagined, though it was looking a little dead eyed. The penny dropped. “Wait, are you shitting me?”

Bruce sighed again and rubbed at his brow, “He’s an emancipated minor. I cannot make him return to school, no matter how much I would prefer to.” He sounded like he was repeating it by rote. Like he’d said it many times before. Perhaps to himself in the mirror.

Jason stared incredulously for a few seconds before abruptly standing. “Little punk. I’m gonna kick his ass.”

He was out of the room and stalking down the hall before he registered the fact that Bruce’s expression had shifted into surprised amusement rather than fear at Jason’s outburst. It drew him up short and part of him wanted to go back and yell at Bruce for laughing at him, but mostly he wanted to ream out the little twerp. Jason had had to drop out of the fifth grade because he’d needed to survive. Tim dropped out, what, a year or two before graduating high school just because he felt like it? 

But Jason also quickly realized he had no idea where Tim might be in the manor, if he was even here at all. He marched into the kitchen and ignored the way his heavy boots made him sound like he was stomping around. “Where is he?”

Alfred didn’t look up from where he was piping a cake. He didn’t react visibly at all, but Jason could tell that the raised eyebrow was implied and felt chastised. “My apologies, Master Jason, but I’m going to require you to be more specific.”

“Drake.” Jason took a breath and made himself relax. “Tim.”

“Master Timothy is currently in the second floor smaller den, I believe. Unless he has relocated since I saw him last, which I rather doubt.”

“Thanks, Alfie.” Jason headed off, making a small detour to the large den on the main floor. Just to rule out the possibility of Tim having moved there and definitely not to take a look at the photo Bruce had mentioned. It was beautiful. A panoramic of the entire bay and skyline, it had been blown up to stretch the length of the mantel. Jason kind of wanted to cut it down. He turned on his heel and made for the stairs.

He found the den where Tim was sitting sideways on an armchair, legs hooked over one arm and shoulders against the other. He had an Xbox controller in one hand and what looked like a miniature loaf of banana bread in the other that he seemed to be eating like a doughnut. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tim’s brow furrowed and he made a questioning noise but didn’t otherwise react, attention on the game he was playing one handed.

“Why isn’t your ass in school?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“It’s Sunday, you dick, and that’s not even what I meant.”

Tim shrugged.

“I meant why aren’t you attending school? What could possibly have happened?”

“I was kicked out.”

A beat. _”What?”_

Tim didn’t answer but did snicker at something that happened on screen. Jason remembered Dick saying something about Tim’s ability to lie as easily as breathing but that his preferred way to handle things he didn’t feel like talking about was to simply avoid it by answering with part of an explanation and making it sound like a full answer so that the other person would accept the pittance of truth and Tim could go back to whatever fuckup thing he was doing.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “What? And Bruce couldn’t get you enrolled somewhere else?”

Tim shrugged again. Then he suddenly swung his legs around to sit upright, holding the banana bread in his mouth so he could use both hands to navigate whatever action sequence he’d come upon. Jason glanced at the screen but didn’t recognize anything. He looked back at Tim in time to see the bread bob in his mouth. At first, Jason thought it was simply breaking and would fall, which would serve him right, but then it bobbed again and he realized that Tim was just continuing to eat it without using his hands. 

Jason could hardly wrap his head around it. This was the guy who unmasked and out-stubborned _Batman_ in order to become Robin? This was the guy who trained under Lady Shiva and who learned to outmaneuver King Snake in the dark after only a few run-ins? This was the guy who went off on his own and managed to recover Bruce from the time stream with next to no allies? This was the guy who beat fucking Ra’s al Ghul at the megalomaniac’s own game? Really? This guy?

Jason stepped in front of the television. The intense battle music continued for a couple seconds before dramatic music replaced it and the fighting sound effects cut out. Tim made a corresponding sad noise in his throat. The bread bobbed again and Jason wanted to slap it out of his mouth, but knew it would leave a sticky residue on the carpet. 

Tim reached up to grab it out of his mouth again and tried to lean around Jason to see the screen, but Jason just moved with him. “Jason, you’re in the way.”

“And you’re supposed to be too smart to be this stupid. Why aren’t you in school?”

Tim rolled his eyes. "I aged out."

"You're thirteen."

"I'm seventeen."

Tim finally seemed to have noticed the attention he'd paid to the banana bread because he tilted his hand to offer some to Jason. From the wet end. Jason almost physically recoiled. "What are you?"

Tim rose in a lazy sway and headed for the door. "Beyond done with this."

Tim shoved the rest of the loaf into his mouth and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket as he walked and started tapping it. Jason followed him out of the room.

"Even if you got kicked out, and I one hundred percent don't believe that you did, there's no way Bruce wouldn't have got you in somewhere else."

Tim didn't respond. Jason snatched the phone from his hands and Tim looked him dead in the eye, reached out to the little ornamental hall table they were passing, opened it's slim drawer, and pulled out a new phone. He resumed his tapping. Tim pulled ahead a few paces while Jason stood there gaping at him. Jason couldn't decide if he was pissed or impressed. Then Tim didn't even look back before he drawled, "We done?" and Jason wanted to punch him through the wall.

"You have to go to school."

"I objectively don't."

Instead of bringing him up short, that propelled him forward. He reached out to snag the kid's scrawny arm, but Tim slouched around the corner and started down the stairs."What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means, Jason? There's no actual reason for me to have to go. I have a job already. Two, if you count night work -"

"You know that makes you sound like a prostitute, right?"

"- and even if I didn't, it's not like I need a diploma to ensure financial security."

Jason let that go because it was just too stupid to comment on right now. "What about all the shit you need to learn in school? Or are you just that much of a genius that you know everything already."

"I am a genius." Tim shot him a bored look.

"So you think you know everything?" Jason couldn't control his incredulity.

Tim rolled his eyes. "No, I don't know everything they would have taught me. But I could. It's not like it would be particularly hard if it was ever relevant."

Jason snorted. "You're an arrogant sack of shit, you know that?"

Tim tilted his head as if considering. "I think it's more like cockiness. Arrogance suggests I couldn't back it up."

"Jesus Christ, kid."

Tim shrugged and proceeded him back into the kitchen where the others had congregated in their absence. "Look, if a high school diploma somehow ever actually becomes relevant, I'll just forge one."

Jason stared at him. "You'll forge one."

Tim glanced back at him and asked in a high, perky voice, "What, like it's hard?"

Duke looked up at that. "He made it sound so reasonable while I was killing myself with exam prep last semester that I honestly considered it too."

Tim nodded at him. "Well it is within our collective skill sets."

Duke opened his mouth, but wilted under Bruce's glance. "No one else is dropping out of school."

Duke looked down and muttered into his cup. "It's not like I was _actually_ considering it."

Bruce's gaze shifted to Damian where he was sitting with Dick. "No one."

"I am not planning on failing to meet the low standards of what passes for education in this country." Damian scowled. "The classes themselves are simplistic enough. But it would be infinitely more preferable if the assignments were not so inane."

Dick bumped his shoulder. "Still have to do them, buddy."

Tim was rummaging around in the cupboard and Jason could feel himself get reluctantly sucked into the back and forth of the conversation.

"They serve no purpose other than to occupy time and waste effort."

"You can extrapolate from them. And sometimes it's the work itself that functions as common ground with other people." Dick tried to convince Damian, though Jason thought there was a lot to be said for the content holding its own weight when given a chance.

"What situation could you possibly be imagining where knowledge of Don Quixote's adventures with swordsmen in the nineteenth century is relevant?"

Jason barely glanced over at the brat before he reflexively corrected him. "D'Artagnan."

Damian looked annoyed. "What?"

Jason sighed. "D'Artagnan was the character from The Three Musketeers. Don Quixote is who the phrase 'tilting at windmills' references. If you're going to talk shit about it, at least get it right."

Tim snickered and set a mug on the counter and filled it from the half full pot. "Should probably read it before you decide it's stupid, Little D."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Do you know the meaning of the word 'hypocrite', Pretender?"

Tim opened the fridge and grabbed something that might have been a fancy cream. "Do you know the meaning of the phrase 'eat my entire a-"

 _"Enough."_ Bruce looked harassed. Alfred called him from the other room and Bruce got up with a warning glance to the room.

Jason glanced at Tim out of the corner of his eye. "Did you get beat up in school? Because you should have."

Tim calmly raised his middle finger at him without raising his gaze. Bruce’s sigh was audible through the open doorway. "Jason. Please."

"Look, Damian." Dick tried to recover the conversation. "We've talked about this before. You don't have to love every part of school. You don't have to overstress yourself about school. But you do still have to apply yourself."

Damian scowled.

Dick smirked and leaned in, teasing, "Or you really will end up following Tim's example and not by choice."

Wait, what?

Tim snickered. "Do I inspire you Dames? They do say imitation is the-"

"I will end you!" Damian snarled.

Tim smirked and sipped his coffee. "I think you mean 'emulate'."

Dick caught Damian before his lunge could do much of anything. Despite the outburst, Damian didn’t actually seem concerningly aggressive. Even the taunting of Tim didn’t seem like it was something meant as an attack. They seemed to be a curious mix of casual and careful, as if the only middle ground they shared was where their insults and barbs used to lay, and so were now exploring that area and dethorning it to try to safely build outwards from there. “Just ignore him, Damian. I know it’s frustrating because you’re so advanced in so many areas, and so unfamiliar to others. But no one’s saying you have to meet Jason’s standards, or even mine. You just have to take each day, each assignment as it comes.”

Wait. 

What?

Meet Jason’s standards _or even_ Dick’s?

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Dick had apparently kept talking because he looked startled and a little annoyed to have been interrupted. “I’m just saying he doesn’t have to set himself against high standards. He can just do the best he can or is able to do at the time.”

Damian glared at both of them. “You do not need to speak about me as if I am not here.”

They both ignored him.

“Yeah, I got that, but what standards of mine are you talking about?”

Confusion pushed into Dick’s eyes, but the annoyance remained. “I dunno, Jay, probably something about dropping out of school at age ten, meeting Bruce at thirteen, getting a little tutoring and then achieving age level standards within the year. Or something about juggling training for the cape, actually taking on the duties of the cape, and also never letting your grades slip below a 4.0?”

Jason felt himself flush, which was ridiculous. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard, Dickless. You’re Bruce’s first; his favourite. The one who always just gets him. You’re the golden boy who’s setting standards around here.”

“You’re literally the only one who calls me that.”

Jason wanted to shove that back in Dick’s face, but it was actually true. He thought back on their encounters and their fights. Every time he’d thrown that sentiment in Dick’s face recently, or while he was still riding the waves of the Pit, or even before his death. Had Dick...had Dick thought that Jason was mocking him? That he was somehow lording his own superiority _over Dick?_

Was Jason...the good kid?

“I kill people, Dick.”

Dick just cocked his head, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Used to kill people. Before you managed to almost single handedly pull yourself out of the effects of a long term mind controlling agent. Which, incidentally, has made you a pretty useful example for Damian.” He reached out and ruffled the kid’s hair, ignoring Damian’s complaints but also not drawing any attention to the way Damian leaned into the contact.

A smothered laugh brought his attention to the side where Duke and Tim were standing near each other and alternating between watching them, looking at their phones, and glancing at each other. 

“Are you jackasses texting each other about us?” Jason snapped.

The two of them lowered their phones guiltily.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Well then what are you two supposed to be?”

Duke looked caught off guard. “I’m...uh...new?”

Jason scowled at him before turning to look at Tim, but Tim only raised his eyebrows at him and took a mouthful of coffee. He looked back at Duke. “He said he doesn’t go to school because he got kicked out. Is that true?”

Tim rolled his eyes, but Jason could read the annoyance creased into the corners of them. “It’s not a lie.”

Dick snorted and Damian looked over at him. “I am better than this at the very least.”

Tim looked over and raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘Are you, though?’

Duke seemed to be fighting a smile. “Uh, that is a thing that happened, but isn’t actually related because it was resolved after Bruce stepped in.”

Tim just continued drinking, though he seemed a bit sulkier than before.

“So…?”

Dick chimed in when it became clear that Tim wasn’t going to. “Tim was enrolled in a private school, but Jack stopped paying the fees so Tim had to leave. Bruce could have paid the fees, but Tim didn’t want to go back -”

“My first attempt at freedom.”

“- so Bruce enrolled him in a public high school. Then Tim dropped out anyway.”

“Yeah, to save Bruce from being flung through time without his consent. Your welcome, assholes.”

Jason raised a brow. “Bruce is back now.”

Tim waved his mug around. “I don’t see him.”

Bruce walked back into the kitchen and he and Tim traded harassed looks.

“You could go to college, Tim.” Bruce said it like he’d said it before. “There is almost an infinite number of subjects you could study. Since you don’t need to go to try to find a job that will ensure financial security, you could go purely for interest. Or to network. Or just broaden your horizons in general.”

“Pretty much everything is online these days. And if not, Bart will just go and audit the class for me and bring me the notes. He’s attended thousands of hours of lectures on pretty much every subject. That’s not an exaggeration. Literally thousands of hours.”

“Study abroad and work on your language skills. Learn new ones.”

Tim just shrugged, but Bruce didn’t look like he was particularly expecting anything else. Jason ran through everything that had happened this afternoon. Then everything he knew about Tim. Was Tim...was _Tim_ the family delinquent? This whole time?

Jason sat down heavily.

Bruce looked over, concerned. “You okay, Jason?”

Jason stared blankly at him. “I’m gonna get my GED. So’s this prick.”

“Language, Master Jason.” Alfred walked back in.

“Don’t mind him, Alfred. He’s just delusional.” Tim downed the rest of his coffee and reached for the pot again.

Really? This guy?

Jason sat and watched them interact. Watched them speak to and over each other. And he noticed the same thing as before. They all seemed at once totally natural with each other, and also strangely tentative with one another. Like they were feeling each other out. Jason wasn’t sure what it meant that they apparently weren’t only careful with him. That he wasn’t the only one they watched nervously. He still didn’t know all that had happened here and between them all. Didn’t know if they knew each other better in or out of their masks, or if there was some other dividing line. But he watched them, and joined in now and then, and he suddenly didn’t quite feel like something outside of them. 

He sat and listened and talked with them and he suddenly realized that they felt like family. That he felt like family to them. And perhaps they had for some time now. 

Damian and Tim bickered and rose in volume until Bruce’s voice raised above theirs and they quieted again. Dick had his phone playing some video and held out to Duke, who looked like he was torn between laughing and gagging. Alfred was standing behind Bruce at the sink and turned to check the time on the clock above the stove, letting Jason see the faint smile on his face. And then Jason realized that he had had a small smile on his face too, for some time now.

Things weren’t perfect, and the way forward wasn’t clear. But it was good, all the same. For now at least, it was good to sit with his family and belong.

**Author's Note:**

> The line "What, like it's hard" is a quote from Legally Blonde


End file.
